Sin is "that which destroys life," which means sin is anything which is harmful to someone. Why does it occur? It is irrational, being driven by subconscious forces. In the world, where sin is denied, it is common to look for a rational explanation for destructivity, as if nothing were ever irrational. Wherever there is sin, there is irrational destruction of life.

Even though sin is irrational, it is an attempt to gain something at someone else's expense. This means it is a willingness to harm others. Harming others for one's own purposes is sacrifice. Sacrifice is one of the components of sin.

In other words, all sin is sacrifice of someone's wellbeing for someone else's motives. To rationalize sacrifice is to rationalize sin. Nothing taught by Christ or any of the true prophets in the Bible justifies sacrifice. Christ said, "It is mercy God wants, not sacrifice" (Mat 9-13, 12-7).

There has never been a form of noble sacrifice which is devoid of sin. The early Jews attempted to modify the pagan ritual of sacrifice to make it acceptable to God the creator and promoter of morality. It was a transition from paganism to morality. As a transition, it was slightly tolerated for awhile, while God taught, through the prophets, that it was not a desirable form of worship (Isaiah 1:11-20)(Jer 7:22)(Hosea 6:6)(Psalms 40:7, 50:8-15)(Mat 9:13, 12:7)(Mark 12:33). To make sacrifice morally acceptable during the transition, the sin element was minimized by using something close to food preparation as a ritual. The pagan purpose of killing was replaced with a more noble purpose of preparing and offering food.

None of this explains Christ's murder as a good deed called atonement. First and foremost, you can't substitute killing a human for killing an animal and get morality out of it. Killing Christ was not as benevolent as preparing food and offering it to God. Christ was hated by his persecutors and murderers. Yet the theology of atonement says Christ's crucifixion was a good deed pleasing to God rather than a sin. Who performed the supposedly good deed? Christ's murderers had no intention of doing a good deed.

According to Paul, Christ did the good deed in offering himself. Would jumping off a cliff have been any different? Suicide is not a good deed. Does the murderous intent of the killers convert it into a good deed? Perhaps exposing the nature of sin makes it a good deed. Then the purpose is to expose sin as sin. Clarifying the nature of sin was certainly Christ's purpose, and it was a good deed; but it shows that humans would murder God, and sin is something that needs to be overcome, not something that was ended on the cross.

There was no theological justification for the transitional ritual of sacrifice by the ancient Jews. It was a carry-over from a pagan ritual which had sin as its purpose. Linking sacrifice to Christ's crucifixion does not create a theological justification, because there is no justifiable theology to anything related to the concept of sacrifice.

Paul claimed that Christ's crucifixion was a once-and-for-all sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Does this mean that committing a sin once is acceptable? Does it mean that committing a sin is a way to end sin? Or does it mean there was no sin in sacrificing Christ? None of these questions can be answered in a way which justifies Christ's murder. There is no justification for sinning just once, for committing a sin which ends all sin, or for murdering Christ.

Paul's rationale was to make a linkage to the ancient ritual, as if there was an inherent value in the ancient ritual which could be extended to Christ's murder. There was no inherent value to the ancient ritual. It was a tolerated corruption. Even if it were vegetable matter rather than an animal offered in the sacrifice, there would have been no theological justification, because destroying and wasting life does not create constructive theology.

Plain and simply, Christ's crucifixion was linked to atonement for no other reason than erasing the significance of sin from the theology of Christianity. The followers of Paul continue to rationalize sin in every way possible. They claim that constructive behavior is an option, not a requirement for getting saved, because the saving was done on the cross through atonement.

As the followers of Paul continue to sin, they justify it through the rationalization of sacrifice, which is inherent in all sin. Supposedly, some persons can be destroyed for the betterment of others. What else is getting rid of welfare or fighting wars? Such values are saying some people can benefit at the expense of others.